Israelis will be casting their votes today but that is only the start of the process in forming the next coalition which will rule at most for four years. That is assuming this government makes it to the conclusion of its term, a real rarity in Israeli politics. Still, the results from today will be leered over with every morsel’s potential meanings gleaned and meticulously quantified with the unflinching attention of a vulture over an injured beast waiting for it to breathe its last signifying dinner is ready. Then it all starts tomorrow or even a few days down the road when President Reuven Rivlin has talked with the various heads of the respective parties to gather their input as to which particular leader they favor for the position of Prime Minister. Though it is not unheard of for some parties to initially place the name of their head as their choice for Prime Minister fully aware that such is next to impossible, though conceivable as President Rivlin is free to choose whomever he believes would be both the best choice and also capable of forming a ruling coalition exceeding sixty Ministers. Such a suggestion still mostly prolongs the process and may even work to produce a choice for the first attempt in forming a coalition to the candidate your party did not prefer, so it is best to not choose to make such a recommendation. That is particularly true this election cycle as whichever person between Benyamin Netanyahu and Yitzhak Hertzog is given the go-ahead to form a coalition will likely succeed. Such is not an unprecedented situation but is not the most likely scenario but this election the citizens polling has depicted an evenly divided electorate between the two expected leaders to receive the nod to form a government. Once a choice has been made, it starts a clock of sorts which allows the candidate forty-two days (six weeks) to assemble sixty-one ministers by cobbling together sufficient parties by granting demands and negotiating alternatives. Should that leader fail, another leader is asked to try; he or she has up to twenty-eight days (three weeks) to attempt to achieve a coalition. Once the President believes there is little or no hope for any leader to forge a coalition, the elections are held again hoping for a different result, almost like Einstein’s definition of insanity, trying the same thing over and over expecting a different result. I guess one might look at the Israeli government forging mechanism and determine as such it is, it could qualify as insanity in action.

Meanwhile, there is a world out there with some just interested in seeing which side wins the opportunity to forge a coalition and succeeds so that they know with who they will be dealing, who will be Foreign Minister, Finance Minister and any other Ministerial position which may determine how they interact with Israel on any number of fronts. What is different about this election is the number of interested parties who have a definite preference to the point that there have been interferences in this election campaign of varying degrees which were mostly beyond acceptable levels. Where editorials in the foreign media are to be expected but daily editorials demanding that the Israeli public choose the leader of the opposition from the previous sitting government in the place of reelecting the current Prime Minister is perhaps attempting to have an influence on the electorate is a bit over the top. But writing editorials and holding frequent interviews with people antagonistic to the current Prime Minister and even holding repeated interviews with influential people, leaders of political parties, heads of NGOs and reporting intended sanctions which will be levied against Israel all demanding that one of the two leading candidates not be granted a chance to form the next government even should their party win by a decent or sizable margin is carrying things way too far into the influence peddling. A foreign government making threats against one of the leading heads of parties from being given the opportunity to form a coalition regardless of the votes cast and doing so for weeks even months or even immediately after elections were called is meddling beyond the acceptable level. But even this was not the limit of the interference.

There were efforts by NGOs within Israel who received much of their, if not all, funding from foreign entities or even foreign government and the European Union all of which were very direct in what was expected as far as attempts to influence the outcome of the Israeli election and there was a group V15 (aka V2015) which is allied with OneVoice, a tax exempt entity which recently received a $200,000 grant of funds from the United States State Department and who was headed by political strategist Jeremy Bird leading five Democratic consultants all directly ordered to work for the defeat of Netanyahu as directed from both the State Department and the White House and probably by President Obama personally. Bird and his team are working with a group known as V15 which is a politically allied partnership with OneVoice which describes itself as utilizing grassroots canvassing and door-to-door politicking tasked to amplify the voice of Israelis and Palestinians to empower the election of, as they candidly have stated, “anybody but Bibi” allowing those more favorable to the two-state solution to defeat Netanyahu removing what President Obama identifies as the greatest threat blocking his forging a lasting peace. This interference in the Israeli elections if legal is only by depending on what the meaning of is is as well as the definition of interference is. Had Israel done similar against the reelection of President Obama during the 2012 elections the group and its entire staffing would have been arrested and charged with spying and working for a foreign government interfering in the election process of the United States and probably a dozen more charges and brought to trial and likely the top organizers and any of the people holding Israeli citizenship being imprisoned for an exceedingly long time. Such would not have been tolerated, let alone continued to act impervious to election laws about foreign interference.

Meanwhile, in almost unanimous agreement the media and anybody who could get themselves before a microphone or quoted in print or in pixels on the Internet were given such attentions providing they were speaking to removing Netanyahu from power and promoting Yitzhak Hertzog directly or simply pressing for any candidate from the opposition who would keep Netanyahu from holding any influence or power in the coming Israeli government. There were even demonstrations and organized rallies which though couched in innocuous to misleadingly tame to even inane terminology though any inspection of their mission or political support were all aligned across the globe to defeat Bibi Netanyahu. One example we recently found related to in an editorial titled A “Peace” Party where the events were describe as the global, “Dance for Peace,” in which parties are being held around the world in the name of electing an Israeli government that according to the organizers, will “bring peace” and “transform the Middle East” One does not need to look too much further before realizing the aim is to defeat Netanyahu and elect Hertzog as by doing so the impediment to peace, a strong and Zionist Israeli government will be replaced with a weaker and more pliable Israeli Prime Minister who can be pressured into making the necessary sacrifices to allow for the formation of a Palestinian Arab state carved out of land that belongs to Israel by any and every legality which can be derived from International Law. We discussed the particular treaties, conference, League of Nations ratifications, and inclusion carrying all forward within the charter of the United Nations in yesterday’s article titled, Israel Elections are Upon Us Tomorrow found within the final paragraph for those interested. This global Dance for Peace goes beyond the obvious assembling people who desire removing Netanyahu from leading the Israeli government and are willing to attempt to influence the Israeli electorate by staging these events throughout the globe which would also include positive coverage of their actions and thus accommodating their view and amplifying its effects, especially if it received such coverage internationally as was also an obvious goal.

As also stated in the editorial, this “peace” movement which is attempting to influence the Israeli election has some glaring assumptions at its base and also makes an oblique accusation against Israel, the supportive Israeli public and anybody who supports Netanyahu over Hertzog casting them as anti-peace, or even worse, as pro-war or warmongers. Prime Minister Netanyahu has made tremendous efforts to forge a peace with Mahmoud Abbas and has taken steps presumably beyond the sight of the average Israeli in order to facilitate the efforts by President Obama meeting even his demand for Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to extend the building freeze well past its initial nine months making it virtually permanent, a dispensation which may be crucial in this election removing him from power as it caused a housing shortage and increased pricing, a likelihood very much desired by United States President Obama. The implied accusations of all the efforts to remove Prime Minister Netanyahu are predicated on erroneous assumptions that first-off Prime Minister Netanyahu does not desire peace, is unwilling to make the territorial sacrifices required for peace, desires to inflame tension to a breaking point forcing another war and finally that the Israeli people are equally guilty of these supposed crimes and would foolishly and blindly reelect Netanyahu if the entire world does not save them from themselves. These suppose that the Israelis alone are to blame for the lack of peace and the making of the Palestinian Arab state and that the Palestinians have already sacrificed for peace and are ready to jump at the chance for peace if only Israel would sacrifice even more if the Israelis even came close to making a fair peace settlement. These suppositions ignore reality to an unfathomable extent. The United Nations extended in the General Assembly Resolution 181 passed on November 29, 1947, offered the Arab League a petition plan where the Jews and Arabs would have divided the lands between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea evenly and somewhat unfairly as close to half of the lands granted the Jews consisted of the Negev Desert while the Arabs would have received the prime farming lands and despite the Jews accepting this partition the Arab League refused to accept this initiative thus rendering it null and void in that process and opted instead to wage war a few months later on May 15, 1948 immediately the morning after Israel declared their independence. Israel had declared their independence on May 14, 1948 at sundown which in Jewish law was the actual beginning of the next day, May 15, 1948, the Israeli Independence Day.

Since then Israel offered what has been considered to be the acceptable over ninety-five percent of Judea and Samaria (West Bank), all of Gaza and to share Jerusalem, even dividing Jerusalem instead of internationalizing the city in a manner, and made this offer repeatedly since when Prime Minister Ehud Barak did so during the Camp David Accords under President William Jefferson Clinton during 2000 and January 2001 as a favor to President William Jefferson Clinton and both were refused by Yasser Arafat with his initial refusal coming in Paris where after being presented with Prime Minister Barak’s offering which included everything Arafat had demanded from President Clinton included in the offer by Arafat abruptly rising and stalking from the room without even making a subsequent demand or comment charging to his awaiting vehicle which was running which leads one to believe this was a planned exit though unexpected by President William Jefferson Clinton and Prime Minister Ehud Barak or United State Secretary of State Madeline Albright who attempted to request for Arafat to return to the negotiations strangely running as best she was able calling Yasser Arafat who simply ignored her and drove away returning to the disputed territories and initiating the deadly Second Intifada as had been planned from even before the negotiations began. The offer was given again by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in 2008 at the very end of George W. Bush Presidency which was refused out of hand by Mahmoud Abbas who demanded a complete right of return for five million plus Arab refugees within the boundary of Israel instead of mostly to the areas to be declared as the Palestinian State and refusing to recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish People. Mahmoud Abbas has made numerous references to what he considers to be a fair offer of making the entirety of the lands between the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea into an Arab state where the Jews will be initially permitted to reside and expected to accept their status as Dhimmis with the rule of the new state being under an Arab Muslim all powerful leader, presumably Mahmoud Abbas until Hamas replaces him, and with the Jews receiving no political rights and limited religious, social, legal, entrepreneurial or ownership rights. Such statements can be located on MEMRI using their search as we did using the search term Mahmoud Abbas and received a plethora of results. Making claims that the Israelis are solely to blame for the lack of peace or the formation of an Arab state and addressing the refugee problem simply aggravated intentionally with malice aforethought by the Arab states surrounding Israel border on or fall under anti-Semitism, anti-Zionism and are definitively anti-Israeli. They are also as false as any statement which nullifies and abrogates any Palestinian culpability for the lack of peace. Perhaps such lack of actions against the Palestinians is due to the small fact that there has been no Palestinian election since 2006 and even longer for Mahmoud Abbas’s position as the leader of the Palestinian Authority while Israel holds elections regularly and often. That would be a nice thought and would pass muster except that worldwide demonstrations consistently target Israel and seldom if ever the Palestinians plus all diplomatic and economic pressures, threats, proclamations, sanctions, boycotts, arraignments and punishments almost without fail are used against Israel while the Palestinians simply receive the majority of aid monies in the entire world through NGOs, UNRWA, funding from individual governments especially from the United States, Europe and the European Union as well as from numerous other United Nations Agencies. The funding of the Arab Palestinian entities is measurable in the billions per month and likely trillions per year should all of their monies including clandestine funding by Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other secretive sources. Such inequities have unfortunately become so commonplace and almost to the point of being mundane that they no longer raise even a question from any corner of the world and the Palestinian Arabs are held guiltless while the Israelis and held culpable for every sin and transgression real or imagined and such should deserve far more even scrutiny than any appear willing to grant. With the measurable rise in anti-Semitism worldwide, these disparities of intentions, actions and accusations will only increase even more until they become an all against the one, the one and only Jewish State and possibly only place on the earth where a Jew is permitted the freedom to worship as they please. On that day Israel will be the sole nation with universal freedom of religion, the last and only.

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